Why Do Some Small Acts of Service Stay With Us Forever?

What’s a small moment from your past that you still think about years later?

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I have forgotten most of the files that crossed my desk in the Government Secretariat. The notes I wrote, the matters I helped process, the deadlines that once seemed so urgent: nearly all of them have faded.

But I have never forgotten one man standing before me with tears in his eyes.

A File That Was More Than Just a File

At the time, I was serving as an Under Secretary to Government. Over the years, many people had approached me with grievances that had remained unresolved for far too long, their files moving slowly or lying unattended in some section.

One day, I came to know of a person with a disability whose pension had been stopped. His case had been pending for a considerable time in another section of the Secretariat. It was not my file. It was not even my section. No one would have faulted me for leaving it alone.

But I knew that he depended on that pension. So I intervened. I made enquiries, followed the matter up and stayed with it until it moved. Eventually, his pension was restored.

The Tears I Never Forgot

After his pension was restored, he came to see me.

He stood before me with tears in his eyes. His expression conveyed a gratitude that no elaborate speech could have communicated.

For the government, it was a pension case.

For him, it was his livelihood, his financial security and perhaps the restoration of a little hope in his life.

I did not feel that I had accomplished something extraordinary. I simply felt grateful that I had been in a position to help.

Why This Moment Stayed

I have often asked myself why this memory outlived so many that seemed far more important at the time. I see three reasons.

First, I saw the other end of the file. Most administrative work is invisible in its effects. A file leaves your desk, and whatever it does to a life happens somewhere you will never see. This time, the consequence walked into my room.

Research suggests this matters more than we realise. In a 2007 study, the organisational psychologist Adam Grant and his colleagues worked with university fundraising callers who raised money for scholarships but had never met anyone who received one. One group was given a brief meeting with a scholarship student. A month later, those callers had more than doubled both their time on the phone and the money they raised.¹ Their work had not changed. It had simply acquired a face.

Here lies the inversion. We assume that our largest achievements leave the deepest marks. This memory lasted for the opposite reason: the act was small enough to be seen whole, from the problem to the person.

Second, it was not required of me. Assigned duties tend to blur together precisely because they are assigned. What we choose to do, when we could easily have done nothing, belongs to us in a different way. Perhaps memory keeps our choices more faithfully than our obligations.

Third, the thanks came without ceremony. There was no certificate, no citation, no entry in a service register. Formal recognition passes through procedure; tears do not. Perhaps that is why his gratitude reached me in a way no official recognition could.

Impartial, But Not Indifferent

A caution belongs here. Administration rests on rules, and rightly so. Rules protect citizens from favouritism, and an officer who acts on sympathy alone, outside procedure, can do as much harm as one who never acts at all.

But impartiality is not indifference. Treating every applicant without favour does not mean forgetting that behind every file is a person, often waiting anxiously for a decision that could change his or her life. Within the rules, there is almost always room for initiative: an enquiry made, a reminder sent, a question asked on someone else’s behalf.

When we forget the person behind the file, administration becomes mechanical. When we remember that person, it becomes service. Nor is this true only of government. Teachers, doctors, managers and anyone entrusted with responsibility towards others carry files of their own, whether or not they are called files.

A Face to Recall

In the last months of his life, Mahatma Gandhi left a short note that came to be known as his talisman. Whenever we are in doubt, he advised, we should “recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man” we have seen, and ask whether the step we are about to take will restore to that person control over his own life and destiny.²

For years, I knew that test as a principle. That day gave it a face. A restored pension may be a small administrative act. For the man who received it, it was exactly what Gandhi described: control over his own life, given back.

I no longer need to imagine a face when I apply that test. I remember one.

A Thought to Carry Forward

We seldom know which of our actions will last. The achievements we are proudest of may fade, while a moment we barely noticed may be remembered for a lifetime, by us or by someone else.

So here is one small practice. This week, look for one matter that has been waiting too long on someone else’s behalf: an application, a request, an unanswered message. It may not be your responsibility. Within your role, ask about it anyway, and follow it through.

You may never see the result. But somewhere, someone may remember the day a difficult situation became a little easier because you did not look away.

What about you? Is there a small act of service you once offered, or one you received, that has stayed with you all these years?

I’d love to hear your story.

Notes

1. Adam M. Grant, Elizabeth M. Campbell, Grace Chen, Keenan Cottone, David Lapedis and Karen Lee, “Impact and the Art of Motivation Maintenance: The Effects of Contact with Beneficiaries on Persistence Behavior,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 103, no. 1 (2007): 53–67.

2. Gandhi’s talisman is reproduced in Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, Vol. II (Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1958), p. 65. Pyarelal was for many years Gandhi’s private secretary.

John Britto Kurusumuthu

Rise & Inspire · riseandinspire.co.in

In response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt, 07 November 2026: What’s a small moment from your past that you still think about years later?

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